As the Left continues to insist that Reverend Wright isn’t an issue, or is an issue, but a closed issue, or any other iteration, let’s keep in mind that it was Barack Obama who made his faith one of pillars of his campaign.

Remember back in 2006 when Senator Obama shared the pulpit with evangelical pastor Rick Warren and Senator Sam Brownback to talk about AIDS? Here’s an exchange from that day, as reported in Salon:

Dec. 2, 2006 | LAKE FOREST, Calif. — As he opened his remarks Friday at a World AIDS Day summit at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, Republican Sen. Sam Brownback said he was feeling a little more “comfortable” than he did the last time he shared a stage with Barack Obama. “We were both addressing the NAACP,” Brownback explained. “They were very polite to me — [but] I think they kind of wondered, ‘Who’s this guy from Kansas?’ And then Barack Obama follows, and they’re going, ‘OK, now we’ve got Elvis.’”
Figuring their joint appearance at an Orange County evangelical church finally put the shoe on the other foot, Brownback turned to Obama and said, “Welcome to my house.” The audience of evangelicals howled with laughter. But when Obama had the chance to speak a few minutes later, he returned to what Brownback had said: “There is one thing I’ve got to say, Sam: This is my house, too. This is God’s house.”

I remember seeing that on the news back then and thought what a great line it was. I also thought that Obama, with this ability to speak to a segment of the GOP base like this, would make a great VP candidate one day. Salon continued:

Everyone laughed again — neither Brownback’s opening nor Obama’s comeback were offered with the rancor that a cold retelling of them probably suggests — but the point had been made anyway. In Obama’s eyes, at least, the Republican Party can no longer claim ownership of all things evangelical.
The bad news for the GOP: Rick Warren apparently agrees.

Here’s more from the piece:

But watching the two men make their way through the day, there was no way to forget their appearances came in the early days of a presidential race, in which they both may be contenders. Exit polls taken in conjunction with last month’s midterm elections show Democrats closing the “God Gap.” Maybe it’s just a temporary thing — conservative Christians can be upset as anybody about an unending war, slow economy and government corruption — but Democrats have spent much of the last two years talking about how they need to do a better job of talking about faith, and, in Obama, they could have a presidential candidate who can actually do it.

Doesn’t Rev. Wright effectively end this ability?